


Red

by Acai



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Angus is sad because I physically cannot write about anybody being happy for once, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, RIP, but it's okay cause he's a good bean, gregg is a good bean also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 23:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10650027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acai/pseuds/Acai
Summary: Angus really doesn't want to drag Gregg down.





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Projecting onto Angus? It's more likely than you think.  
> Yet another McVent fic  
> Tumblr: aobajosighs

**Red**

Angus knows that there’s going to be a day when he won’t have a Gregg.

Part of his mind can’t wrap around that, and stubbornly refuses to admit that a world where he won’t see Gregg every day. The other part of his mind has accepted the fact that it’s incredibly possible that someday they just won’t… _work_ anymore, and when— _if_ —that happened then he just wouldn’t have a Gregg any longer.

Angus knows that it’s horrible of him to expect for it to happen, but it’s only life. It’s going to hurt a lot less if he’s ready for it, and he’s got to be ready for it. Gregg was real, and every real thing would cease to exist eventually. Whether that came sooner or later, Angus had already accepted it. That didn’t mean that he didn’t spend nights squeezing his eyes shut and wishing, wishing, wishing for it to never happen.

Gregg is always an arm’s reach away. Even when he’s at work, all Angus needs to do is reach for his phone and send him a text, and he knows as sure as the sun rises that Gregg will be there. Angus never realized how ingrained into his mind that fact was until he would find himself habitually reminding himself of that fact, as if it were the rope in the water for him to hold onto if he ever got too worried about drowning.

He’s not quite sure what he’s going to do when he hasn’t got a rope anymore.

Gregg is always an arm’s reach away, but sometimes he feels dimensions away—like he’s never really been there at all. In moments when Angus finds himself caught up in memories (hands, fingertips, breath), it always feels as if Gregg is too far away to ever have really existed. The loneliness that comes with the revelation feels like a hole through his stomach, gaping and jarring.

There’s an entire world outside the window. There’s a world with things that he’s never done and people he’s never met, but Angus tries his hardest to never explore it. Their walls, their tables, their carpet, their chairs—things that Angus knows better than the back of his hand—are all calming. They’re familiar, and he knows that nothing bad has ever been inside of these walls. He never knows what to expect outside of them, outside of the familiarity of work and home. The world is big, and the amount of things that can go wrong is even bigger.

Angus knows that he worries too much. He knows that he spends all day before going out thinking of everything that can go _wrong_ if he goes out, but each time he ends up having a good time and having worried for nothing. He thinks that Gregg might be partially responsible for that, because he might be an irresponsible person, but he always remembers to choose quiet, calm places when they go out for dinner or to spend an evening doing something other than watching whatever’s on television together.

He worries too much, but he can’t help it.

He’s always going to worry like the world is constantly ending.

It’s too hard sometimes to go to work. It’s too hard sometimes to do anything but remember to breathe and lay in bed all day. Those days are days when every shadow of a leaf blowing outside his window makes him flinch so hard he makes himself sore, and those days are days when every noise is coming to strangle him or break his bones out of place. Each thing that brushes his arms, be it the blankets or his own self, leaves the lingering memory of the feeling of pain. Pain from waiting weeks to go to the hospital when the bone in his arm wasn’t in the right place, pain from hands around his throat, and pain from the stinging feeling of quick hands or sharp words.

Angus prefers those, because those are tolerable. He can sit and remember how it felt to be shoved against a wall without even batting an eye, it’s not too bad. He prefers those over the _feeling_ of ghosting hands pressing down on his shoulders, over the _feeling_ of _hands_ where _hands don’t belong_ , over the _feeling_ of fingertips trailing up, up, up, up, up—

He can feel it, physically, even though there’s not really anybody there at all. It makes his skin crawl and his shoulders feel heavy. When Angus remembers the feeling, when he feels those hands there again, he can’t ever seem to stop himself from hunching in or shuddering, trying to shake the hands off.

He’d like to think that it isn’t obvious, but Gregg always seems to notice. Angus really wishes he wouldn’t. It always sobers him, even if it’s only for a couple of seconds, and Angus can’t help but feel guilty for being the reason he isn’t smiling anymore.

He always feels guilty, too, for being glad at the same time. He feels selfish for liking the comfort that comes next, even if it’s miniscule, because he’s always glad to be able to focus on the pressure of Gregg squeezing his hand instead of the feeling of hands on his _shoulders,_ crawling and waiting.

Angus really doesn’t deserve Gregg. Angus is bad at comforting, even if Gregg tells him otherwise, because he can just _tell._ Angus is bad at small-talk, even if Gregg doesn’t have any problem with the shorter replies, he can _just tell._ Angus is bad at being a boyfriend, sometimes, when he can’t handle touch, or noise, or movement, and Gregg always tells him that he really doesn’t mind, but Angus _can just tell._

Angus is bad at being a person.

He knows it, no matter how hard he tries not to be. He can tell when he notices habits that he’s picked up from his father.

He _tries_ to tell himself that he’s not the same. He would never _hit_ somebody, he would never—

But he sees it sometimes in things that he does, that he’s just like his father always was. That he’s just like his mother always was. He’s just like them. He’s going to turn out like them.

And, of course, they hadn’t wanted to turn out like _their_ parents, Angus knew. But they had. And so would he. It would always be an endless cycle, and Angus would just keep hurting people the way that they always hurt everybody who they knew.

Everything hurts sometimes.

Angus feels guilty—unbearably guilty—that Gregg doesn’t make the hurt go away. He loves Gregg, he really does, but the hurt always remains. Does he not love _enough?_ Is he not loving _the right way?_

Gregg tries, and he tries perfectly, but it only seems to make Angus’ mind a little kinder. He doesn’t have to listen to his own head ripping him up and throwing him in a fire, but even when his head is quiet and his breathing is okay his chest still hurts like there’s knives digging into it.

It feels like….

It feels like….

It feels like he’s doing everything wrong.

He tries journaling. He feels weird doing it, and is more paranoid about somebody stumbling across the entries than assisted by the process. It helps some people—it certainly helps Mae—but it’s not for Angus.

He tries counting every good thing that happens in the day, but only finds himself tallying up every single time he messed up something that _could_ have been good if he hadn’t _ruined_ it.

He tries—

Other methods.

That don’t do anything at all and only make his eyes feel heavier at night when he can’t sleep dwelling on them.

There’s nothing left to do anymore but work and work until they’ve got enough money to just go.

Angus thinks that maybe—just _maybe_ —if he gets far enough out of that town then he’ll be home free. That he won’t close his eyes to go to bed and feel the ground fall out from under him as the world tilts and the walls look the same as they did _there_ where everything _hurt._

He thinks that maybe he can just run away from it all and forget about all of the bad things.

Gregg will be there, and things will be good, Angus thinks.

They’ll be able to go outside and look at the sky where they won’t have to breathe in the smell of their neighbor smoking _whatever it was_ that he smoked next door, and they’ll be able to go anywhere they’d like in their town without worrying about memories from years before tainting all the good spots, and they’ll be able to just…live.

Angus will be able to love the way that Gregg smiles without worrying that he’s going to accidentally make Gregg stop smiling. He’ll be able to love the way that Gregg laughed without having to worry about ruining the happy mood from the laugh if he sees a place that sends him back to a bad place in his head.

And he wants that more than he really wants anything else, as things are.

Gregg is a good person. Even when he’s sad, even when he’s stress, even when he’s short-tempered—he’s a good person. Angus doesn’t _want_ to weigh him down. He doesn’t _want_ to miss the good things about Gregg because he’s too busy noticing the bad things about a past that doesn’t even—doesn’t even _matter_ anymore.

Angus is just stuck in a world that doesn’t _matter_ anymore.

It’s like he’s in a room that’s on fire, and the exit is right in front of him. All he needs to do is push the bar and everything will be okay. But he can’t, and he won’t, because there’s something in the fire that he’s searching for and can’t leave without. He’s not sure what it is—he’s not sure why he’s not willing to let it all go—but it’s keeping him trapped in the heat and the smoke and the danger. There’s not much air, there’s not much space, and he’s so hot that he can’t even stand anymore.

So why is he holding on?

There’s nothing in the fire, but Angus can’t let it go.

Angus wants to go, because it’s the only thing that he hasn’t tried yet. There’s a part of him that suffocates in the fear that they’ll go to Bright Harbor and it’ll all be exactly the same, but even then the places won’t be tainted and the people will be fresh. Even then he won’t even be in the same _world_ as Possum Springs, where nobody is really… _normal,_ and where everything is long since tainted in some way or another.

And even though they aren’t there yet, Angus is certain that Bright Harbor is already doing them a world of good. He knows it when they can’t sleep, so they stay awake and make up houses that they’re going to buy some day. They’re all ridiculous—fifteen stories tall with pools and fancy statues—but there’s something good about forgetting about everything bad and laughing at four in the morning.

Angus loves the way that Gregg laughs. He loves the way that he laughs when Gregg laughs. He loves that Gregg’s smile is contagious, he loves the way that Gregg gets distracted so easily that he’ll say the same sentence five times over without even realizing, he loves the way that Gregg is so full of energy but tires so quickly at night, yawning every five words and pressing himself as closely to Angus as he can.

He worries, sometimes, that he isn’t doing the whole _loving_ thing right. He worries, sometimes, that he’s going to turn out just like his parents. He worries, sometimes, that he’s never going to stop flinching at shadows and suffocating when he remembers the feeling of fingertips crawling upwards.

But they’re okay, and they’re going to be as okay as they can for as long as they can.

Angus knows that there might be a day where he doesn’t have a Gregg anymore.

But that doesn’t have to happen for a long while yet, and they’re okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: aobajosighs


End file.
